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. 2022 Oct 1;12(10):e9363.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.9363. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Microhabitat use, daily activity pattern, and diet of Liolaemus etheridgei Laurent, 1998 (Reptilia: Liolaemidae) in the Andean Polylepis forests of Arequipa, Peru

Irbin B Llanqui  1 , Bryn Edwards  2 , Evaristo López Tejeda  3
Affiliations

Microhabitat use, daily activity pattern, and diet of Liolaemus etheridgei Laurent, 1998 (Reptilia: Liolaemidae) in the Andean Polylepis forests of Arequipa, Peru

Irbin B Llanqui et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

This study describes the microhabitat use, daily activity pattern, and diet of Liolaemus etheridgei Laurent, 1998 in the El Simbral and Tuctumpaya Polylepis forests in Arequipa, Peru. El Simbral is a fragmented forest, whereas Tuctumpaya is unfragmented. Our results reveal that L. etheridgei shows no positive selection for any of the microhabitats we identified in Polylepis forests; on the contrary, it selects negatively against Polylepis trees and nonthorny bushes. The daily activity patterns indicate a bimodal pattern with peaks at 9:00-10:59 and 13:00-13:59 h. The diet of L. etheridgei consists mainly of plant material, and the most important animal prey category is Lygaeidae: Hemiptera, which is selected for positively. In particular, microhabitat selection varied for nonthorny bushes, which were selected negatively in the Tuctumpaya population but neither positively nor negatively in the El Simbral population. According to the proportions of plant material found, the L. etheridgei from El Simbral were found to be omnivorous, whereas the Tuctumpaya population was herbivorous. However, the percentage of plant material consumed in the El Simbral population was close to the critical value for herbivory-omnivory. We conclude that the three ecological aspects of L. etheridgei studied here are virtually identical in El Simbral and Tuctumpaya; therefore, this species is not affected significantly by the current fragmentation of forest.

Keywords: Liolaemus montanus group; bimodal activity pattern; herbivory; omnivore; resource selection.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Location of the Polylepis forests of “El Simbral” and “Tuctumpaya” in the buffer zone of the Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve, Peru.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Polylepis forests in “El Simbral” (left) and “Tuctumpaya” (right), Arequipa, Peru.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Manly's index for microhabitats used by Liolaemus etheridgei in Polylepys forest of El Simbral and Tuctumpaya, Arequipa, Peru.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Daily activity pattern of L. etheridgei in the Polylepis forests of El Simbral and Tuctumpaya, Arequipa, Peru. Probability density functions are based on univariate kernel estimator (bandwidth = 1/3).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Dry weight percentage contribution of prey categories to the diet of Liolaemus etheridgei in Polylepis forest of El Simbral and Tuctumpaya, Arequipa, Peru. Percentage of plant material: insectivorous (0–10%), omnivorous (11–50%), herbivorous (51–100%).
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Resource selection ratios for preys consumed by L. etheridgei in Polylepis forest of El Simbral and Tuctumpaya, Arequipa, Peru. The dashed red line indicates the critic value 1.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
Unconstrained ordination of diet data based on non‐metric multidimensional scaling (stress = 0.194).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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